Life couldn’t be any better for these fraternity brothers. Andrew and Dan met while attending Arizona State University and the last four years have been filled with good times. Some of the Teams refer to Andrew and Dan as “Team Superbad.”

Now they are ready for a life-altering experience. Andrew, a senior, is studying urban planning. He is hoping to make the most of their last year in college before they part ways. His laid-back appearance can be deceiving so count on him to be assertive, hands-on, and ready to take on anything that comes his way.

Dan graduated last December with a degree in Tourism Management. He enjoys bar hopping, sports and all things funny. Dan also loves to travel and hopes to use his extensive global travel knowledge and expertise to get a leg up on the competition.

These two say they can talk their way in or out of anything by cracking jokes and keeping the mood light, and they promise to bring more to the Race than any other Team. Look for them to always keep things entertaining in their own special way.

Dan Honig is the son of Dr. Gordon Honig of Greenville, an orthodontist in Newark and Middletown, and Joy Honig, a teacher.

Dan is out-going and gregarious and loves to travel, his dad said.

“We were always huge fans of 'The Amazing Race,’” Dr. Honig said today. “We love the show. That’s what motivated him to go ahead and try to be on it.”

Dan attended The Sanford School,, where he played tennis and was the state singles champion in 2002, his junior year.

Now Dan is in the managerial training program for Hyatt Hotels in Washington, D.C, after graduating from Arizona State with a degree in tourism management.

Dan declined to speak to The News Journal until he gets permission from CBS.

He and Lappitt are members of Alpha Epsilon Pi.

“Dan is more of the action guy, and Andrew is more of a thinker, a little more low-key, but very funny in his own way,” Dr. Honig said.

His son and Andrew remind him of the buddy teams you can see in Judd Apatow movies such as “Knocked Up.”

Andrew particularly reminds him of Seth Rogan, Dr. Honig said.

The fraternity brothers sent a video to CBS that showed them hamming it up during a mini-'Amazing Race' to 7-11 to buy something by a certain time.

“They pretty much were trying to show the producers who they were, what kind of people they were,” Dr. Honig said.

“I wasn’t surprised when they sent in the video. I was surprised when they called back and wanted another one. They get thousands of videos for this show, and I thought he’d never hear back from them.”

Once Dan and Andrew were accepted, they weren’t allowed to tell their families or anyone else any details.

They left, and the show was taped.

“We were really in the dark,” Dr. Honig said. “We weren’t allowed to know where he was, how long he was in the race. We were called by producers just to let us know that he was safe and that he wasn’t harmed and was healthy.”

Dan hasn’t given his parents even a peep about what happened during the race.

“We’re going to have to watch the show like everyone else,” Dr. Honig said.

He hopes First Staters get a kick out of the situation.

“For someone in Wilmington to be in this show, I think, is a really cool thing for Delaware,” Dr. Honig said. “Hopefully, people will be rooting for Dan knowing that he’s a Delaware boy, born and bred.”

Born for battleCompetition-minded Sanford grad keeps mum on outcome of 'American Race' gig

Mr. Competitive -- otherwise known as Dan Honig of Wilmington, who along with his college roommate will battle for $1 million on "The Amazing Race" this season -- says that if The Sanford School taught him anything, it was that it's OK to lose.

Which is not a hint about how the show comes out.

It's just a fact.

"I'm extremely competitive," Honig says from Washington, D.C., where he's just started a new job as a hotel-management trainee with Hyatt. "I hate to lose."

He's been a sports fan his entire life, and played a lot of tennis, including being the Delaware singles champion during his junior year at Sanford.

"We had a great tradition at Sanford in athletics, and that was my foundation for my competitive spirit," Honig says.

Honig, 23, will compete with his Arizona State fraternity brother, Andrew Lappitt, 22.

Honig is the son of orthodontist Gordon Honig of Greenville and remedial reading teacher Joy Honig of Wilmington.

During the third week of November last year, he noticed on "The Amazing Race" Web site that video applications were due the next week.

He turned around to Lappitt, his roommate at the Alpha Epsilon Pi house, and said, "Hey, you want to go for this?"

"We had no hope of anything happening the way it did," Honig says. "We just wanted to say we did it. I don't like to not try things."

They quickly decided to tape their own "amazing race" -- to the 7-Eleven.

Honig says their video was designed mostly to show who they were: the outgoing and action-oriented Honig and the quieter, more deliberate Lappitt.

"We had to be ourselves," Honig says. "I knew that they would not be interested in a scripted thing with music and all that sort of stuff. I knew that we should just sell our unique personalities."

They slapped the video together, sent it in and promptly forgot out applying.

"I had a lot on my plate," Honig says.

Three months later, as Honig was getting ready to graduate and hit Europe for two weeks with a friend, they got a call back from CBS asking for another video.

"We took them on a tour of the fraternity house and then we went to a bar in Tempe, Ariz.," Honig says. "Andrew was trying to put his moves on a girl, and we had a video of him getting absolutely shot down. It wasn't set up at all. We just asked a random girl. He was using these lame pick-up lines, and I was just looking at him like, 'What are you doing?' You couldn't have scripted that."

The excitement of not knowingAs soon as the frat brothers were accepted, they and all their family members had to sign contracts that they wouldn't tell anyone that Andrew and Dan were on the show. If the contracts are violated, the friends lose any prize money.

The first time anyone was able to publicly acknowledge Honig's and Lappitt's roles on the show was Tuesday, when CBS announced the cast.

Host Phil Keoghan has said that he particularly liked the fraternity brothers, partly because they are such different personalities.

"There's definitely tension between the two of them while they're making decisions during the race," he told Associated Press.

Joy Honig wasn't surprised her son and Andrew were chosen for the show.

"You have to know Danny to know Danny. But, when Danny gets his mind on something, he can accomplish whatever he wants, and Danny loves traveling," Joy says. She's planning a big premičre party at Kid Shelleen's in Trolley Square on Sept. 28, when the show debuts.

Honig and Lappitt left for the show in mid-April, starting at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The race covers 30,000 miles in 23 days to countries including Brazil, Bolivia, Russia, India, Cambodia and Kazakhstan.

But, before they left, Honig and Lappitt had no idea where they were going.

"It's very exciting not knowing what lies ahead of you, what kind of culture you're going to be seeing," Honig says. "The surprise was so much fun. I just wanted to start so badly; I had so much adrenaline."

He's traveled a lot with his parents and on his own, but Lappitt had never been out of North American.

"So again, he was on the opposite side of the spectrum from me," Honig says.

Honig put off a job search while waiting to head out and start filming, but he started dieting and working out every day, losing 30 pounds in the days leading up to the show.

"I wanted to put my best foot forward," Honig says. "And 30 pounds sounds like a lot, but I didn't have anything else to do while I was waiting. I was literally going to the gym every day. It was real easy for me to be motivated by this kind of experience. How can you not be?"

Lappitt, meanwhile, was still in school and working to boot, so he had little time to train.

The hardest part for both of them was keeping the secret, especially when they seemed to disappear from the planet for three and one-half weeks starting in mid-April.

"It was really hard," Honig says. "You're in so many social situations where you'd love to bring up the topic, and you can't. I was very mentally disciplined. And I lied. I made up a complete story about where I was. I told people I was doing Habitat for Humanity in the suburbs of Mexico City."

When he 'fessed up this week, his friends were shocked, amazed even.

"They can't believe my face is plastered across the CBS Web site and I'm going to be in this. It's just complete and utter shock and disbelief," he says.

The pleasure of not tellingOn the day the big announcement was made, he was looking forward to going back to work. Nobody he worked with had any idea of the truth, he says.

"The important thing for me was to go about my life in a normal capacity," Honig says. "I got this job at the Grand Hyatt in Washington about five weeks ago. It's a really good opportunity to be with a good company in a good city, and I feel fortunate to have landed the position."

He and his family always liked "The Amazing Race," which is in its 13th season. Honig enjoyed watching people react to the situations they were thrown into, and seeing how the dynamics of the relationships changed. And he liked that it wasn't scripted.

While he can't say much about the filming, he can say, "They never told you what to say. There's so many times you forget that cameras are in your face. The adrenaline is going. You're just trying to get to this place as fast as possible."

While Honig and Lappitt were away filming, the families had no idea where they were.

"We were really in the dark," Gordon Honis says. "We weren't allowed to know where he was, how long he was still in the race. We were called by producers just letting us know that he was safe and he was OK."

Dan Honig seems to enjoy not giving any hints, sort of gleefully enjoy not telling.

"I want people to share this ride with me," says Honig, who hasn't seen any of the show yet. "Not only would it be unfair to CBS to say something, but it also would be unfair to myself and everyone else. It would be like watching a football game on TV when you already know the score. I want people to go into it blindly."

And then he drops another teaser.

"I like trying things to see what happens. If you don't try, you never know," he says. "I tried my best. If it wasn't good enough, so be it."

Andrew Lappitt wasn't expecting to hear back from CBS when he and his Arizona State University frat brother Dan Honig submitted their audition tape for "The Amazing Race 13." Lappitt, who lived in Tucson from 1995 to 2004, wasn't exactly sold on Honig's idea for auditioning in the first place. The video featured the two students on a "Race"-style mission to find Slurpees at their neighborhood 7-Eleven convenience store. "I wasn't a fan of reality television, so I wanted to get the audition over quickly," Lappitt said in an interview by e-mail. "We didn't think it would get us to Hollywood. We just made it to show our friends and give them a laugh." Much to Lappitt's surprise, the video earned the frat boys a spot on the series. They will compete against a mother and son, a brother and sister and eight other teams as "The Amazing Race" gets under way at 7 tonight on CBS. Lappitt has fond memories of Tucson. He graduated from Sabino High School in 2004 and regularly hung out at the Arizona Pizza Company on Sabino Canyon Road with friends. His parents still live in town, as does much of his extended family on his dad's side. Lappitt lives in the Phoenix area and works as a city planning intern in Mesa. The show has already wrapped for the season. "When it was over, all I could think about was settling down and resting," he said. "But it has been a few months so I've recovered and I'm ready to do it again."

Local's 'Amazing Race' For $1 MillionWILMINGTON, Del. (CBS 3) ― One local man's race to one million dollars proved to be more challenging than it looked as he went from fan to competitor on the hit CBS show "The Amazing Race."

"It's definitely harder than it looks," said Dan Honig,23, a 2003 graduate of The Stanford School in Hockessin, Delaware. "I know that sounds very cliché to say that, but it's true."

Honig, an admitted fan of the show, participated in the most recent season of "The Amazing Race," which premieres on CBS 3, September 28.

"It's not a vacation, it's a race!" Honig stressed.

The Delaware native joined forces with college buddy Andrew Lappitt, 22, who he met while attending Arizona State University, to form Team Dandrew.

As part of the show, the two traveled the world out of contact with family and friends as they competed for the $1 million prize money.

"It was very difficult with things happening in different parts of the world and not knowing where your child is," said Joy Honig, Dan's mother.

To follow the guys' progress, tune into CBS 3 Sunday nights to watch "The Amazing Race."

Dan and Andrew seemed to stumble their way into The Amazing Race finale, capitalizing on the epic mistakes of seemingly stronger teams. The fratty duo came in second to last throughout the race. In the finale, they were outraced by a big margin, disappearing for much of the telecast. Their third place finish resulted in one of the funniest finish line moments ever, as they self-deprecatingly acknowledged their numerous fumbles. Dan and Andrew talked with fancast about their underdog experience.

How far behind were you in the final leg?Dan: Probably about an hour.

At the finish line you alluded to making mistakes in the final leg. What were they?Dan: We did all our tasks fine. Our major mistake was not getting off the airplane as aggressively as Ken and Tina and Nick and Starr. We got in the first cab instead of scouting them out to see if he knew what he was doing. We just wanted to get out of that airport. We were kind of doomed from there. It was almost like he had no idea where he was going and we were practically driving the car ourselves.

You were the team who made it to the finals without ever winning a leg or even coming in near the lead.Andrew: We're proud of that.

How do you feel about your underdog status? What was it like when you were watching the episodes?Andrew: For our friends and family watching, we provided entertainment. They were like, "How the hell did you guys make it this far?" every week. But I don't think we're a bad team or the worst team ever to make it to the final three. We made it there fair and square.Dan: Yeah. We have this stigma of bumbling and stumbling to the final three. I believe we make our own luck and we did things to put ourselves in that position. Other teams made bigger mistakes. That's the name of the game. To not screw up as much as other racers. And we did that pretty well for most of the race.

It seemed like several times you benefited from the mistakes of other teams. Did you have some sort of mojo?Andrew: If Dallas hadn't made the mistake with the passport, Ken and Tina would have been eliminated. We beat Ken and Tina. Dan: In one of the episodes Phil said, "Will Dan and Andrew keep making bad mistakes?" Well, I don't think we did. I think we made great decisions. We didn't go for the fast forward, which two other great teams went for. We didn't lose anything. As much as roadblocks and detours are part of the game, decision making and keeping your stuff is also part of the game. Those are the things that get overlooked by the public.

Dan you had a memorable marching style. Why did you have so much trouble with that task? Dan: What was going on there was we were there second to Ken and Tina and things were going pretty well and the other teams started showing up and we got to the marching and I knew Andrew would be great at that. But it was a detour. We both had to do it. I overanalyzed what the steps were. I thought it was more complicated than it was. I was stressed out that the other teams were passing us. I looked like a fool. But that's okay. I had a lot of fun with that leg.

What were your best and worst memories of the race overall?Andrew: The best was going to New Zealand. Just making our way to a country that's so far away from everything. Ir's a place very few people get to go just because of the distance. Not only did we get to go to Auckland but we got to drive three hours through the North Islands down to the coast through green pastures and beach cities. It's hard to believe that a place so incredibly beautiful is on the same planet I live on. Worst experience has got to be in Bolivia. I got altitude sickness before the newspapers were delivered that morning. I thought I might have doomed the team. I couldn't move. I couldn't even stand.Luckily, I got oxygen from the paramedics. It juiced me right up. Dan: The wrestling to me was so much fun. I was a big fan of wrestling as a kid. Going into that arena and having the crows so excited and doing it really quickly, one of the best on the race. That was my favorite task. In terms of general experience, that second half of the second Russia leg was that sprint to the VDNKh park, the general euphoric feeling if blowing by Ken and Tina on that mat because we never passed a team like that before in that fashion.

Are you back on campus now?Dan: No. I graduated a year ago.Andrew: The show wanted us to look like we were in college. Just for kicks. Dan: When we applied we were both still enrolled. So it wasn't false. Andrew: We knew that's what the race wanted. So we gave it to them.

What moments do you wish America had seen that ended up on the cutting room floor?Dan: The final episode, it cut off as I'm on the zip line going down. The next time we were shown we were coming onto the finish line.Andrew: We did every single task that was given to us. They chose not to show it for some reason, which we are a little disappointed in. Dan: They edited the whole show where teams who were hours behind looked like they could win. So why couldn't they do that in the final leg? We had this grand strategy. It's in the extra videos. I wish they'd showed it because it was genius. If we got to the recreation center first or second, we were going to wait for the rest of the cabs to get to the area because I knew it was a rural area and there were not a lot of cabs around. While the other teams were busy doing their tasks, I would have paid their cabs to leave. So they would have been stranded and we would have won the race. But we got there last so our grand strategy was irrelevant. Andrew: I can tell you that most people who were watching last night would have wanted to see a win come from us. We were the one team that did not look promising at all. I think the most exciting thing would have been for us to blow the other racers away. Fifteen minutes in to the episode you already knew we were done. It wasn't very exciting. The underdogs are always loved by the public. Unfortunately since Nick and Tina and Ken and Starr were so close, they decided to focus on that.